Tag Archives: cell phone bill

If the FCC gets its way you might be able to rest a little easier when it comes to your cell phone bill. In an intitiative spearheaded by Joel Gurin, the head of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, the days of seeing an extremely high cell phone bill will become a thing of the past. Gurin is trying to eliminate “bill shock” through a system where phone carriers would notify mobile subscribers via an unspecified method if their current cell phone usage is likely to result in a bill that is significantly higher than their normal monthly plan.

A similar system has been in place in the European Union since 2009 and has been a resounding success. Said Gurin: “We’re issuing a Public Notice to see if there’s any reason that American carriers can’t use similar automatic alerts to inform consumers when they are at risk of running up a high bill. This is an avoidable problem. Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”

I think this a great idea and will help protect consumers from running up an extremely large cell phone bill. With more and more consumers switching over to smartphones they may not know how much data they are using if they are on a limited plan. Instead of having to manually check in on their account all of the time the mobile carrier could send them alerts letting them know when they are nearing their monthly data, text or voice limits. If someone would go over their monthly allotment then it is completely their fault as their mobile carrier did the best they could to alert them that they may be reaching their limits which would result in a higher bill.